I will spill the beans, warns Venita Masisi
Former deputy chair of the Alexandra Northrand Football Association Venita Masisi, infuriated by the loss of promotion of her team to the SAB League, said the game was nothing but a daylight robbery for her team and threatened to spill the beans on the shenanigans at the LFA'.
The Alexandra Northrand Local Football Association (ANLFA) Promotional League final match between Ma Afrika FC and Norwood Young Stars was a hotly contested affair on and off the pitch.
The players went at it on the field of play and there were flaring tempers on the bench.
In typical fashion of a game of its magnitude, a furious Norwood Young Stars coach Didier Sha blamed the referee for their loss. “We lost this match and subsequently failed to gain promotion due to the referee.
“She [referee] handled the game badly and on top of that, failed to award us two clear-cut penalties when opposition players handled the ball in the box. Who knows, maybe those two penalties would have changed the complexion of the scoreline,” he told Alex News in an interview after the match.
The coach’s words were echoed by club president Venita Masisi, who also bemoaned the two penalties that she thought should have been awarded to her side. She is a former deputy chair of the previous ANLFA executive.
“I am one person who always takes defeat lying down but this time I am not going to. I will speak my mind and tell the powers that be in this league that my team was robbed of victory, robbed of promotion to the SAB League.
“When we played the closing games of the two streams of the league, our LFA [Local Football Association] brought qualified referees from the Premier Soccer League to officiate. But now, in the crucial final that will decide who gets promoted, they give us amateur referees.
“Look at the disaster they caused. We deserve a thorough explanation from the LFA. If this is how [the LFA executive] is going to handle and run our football, then we are in for a disaster. Something needs to be done,” said a fuming Masisi to Alex News.
“I am sick and tired of the shenanigans of this LFA Ntate Sipho [in reference to the editor of Alex News Sipho Siso], and soon I will spill the beans… watch this space.”
Ma Afrika coaches Khathuchelo Monyae and Brian Mavhungu said they had a game plan to beat Stars and that was to use their speedy wingers to deliver the ball into the box and it worked for them.
LFA secretary general Malvin Khumalo disputed that the referees were too junior, saying they are referees from the Hollywoodbets League, which is a Women’s National League that is on the platform of the mother body, Safa [the South African Football Association].
“The two female referees are in the Safa regional, provincial and national refereeing structures and we believe it was a competent team to handle a match of that magnitude,” Khumalo told Alex News.
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